Takeaway: If Christians want to reflect the diversity of the kingdom, then organizations have to acknowledge the reality of the minority experience and make changes.

Books on race or history around race or even race within the Christian world are not new, but there are few books within the Christian community that are particularly focused on minorities within the predominately White parachurch world. The only other book that is somewhat similar to Adrian Pei’s The Minority Experience that I have read is the book edited by Anthony Bradley, Aliens in the Promised Land. However, these are two very different types of books.

Aliens in the Promised Land was an account by a number of Christians working in predominately White church or church based organizations, many of them educational institutions. That first person account from a number of different people, of different racial or ethnic backgrounds and working in different types of organizations, lays the groundwork for why White Christians need to be listening to minorities within predominately White church. But by its nature, the book is more focused on personal description than larger systemic issues. Adrian Pei’s The Minority Experience includes personal examples and memoir, but the focus is organizational development..

I have entirely too many highlights and notes to adequately trace all of the themes that Pei develops through the book, but I want to note four that were particularly striking to me.

First, Pei is focusing on systems because he is focused on organizational development. It is not that personal ignorance or animus are unimportant when talking about the minority experience within organizations, but “Systematic power is often hardest for people to accept or understand, because it is largely invisible. Also, it is far easier to blame an individual than a system because a system doesn’t have as clear a culprit and solution.” (Kindle Location 550)

Pei also clearly outlines the difference between segregation and separation. “Segregation is an act of power imposed upon a minority group against their will, not a voluntary attempt to form a community of support.” (Kindle Location 520) One of the trends in discussion around racial and ethnic issues is that many Whites point to separation as a form of racism without understand the difference between preventing minorities from participation and the gathering together of minorities for support.

The third major thread that I think is really important to the book is why diversity matters, both within culture and within organizations.

“The inherent message that has settled into the group—is that it can succeed and be secure with its current demographic. That is why so many minorities believe that diversity is treated as optional. It the most blunt and pragmatic sense, diversity is optional to many white organizations, because their historical success has not relied on it.” (Kindle Location 1060)

Many Christian organizations have come to understand that diversity really is an important feature of the kingdom. But too many seem to value ‘Cosmetic diversity’, valuing visual diversity by promoting the voices of minorities that are most able or willing to reflect White cultural values. Viewing minorities as primarily transactional (what we can learn or gain by having minorities in our organization) is different from valuing people that are created in the image of God and whom are part of the diverse reality of the kingdom.

Finally there is a long section on the importance of pain, power, and the past, not just for minorities, but for leaders.

“…as I thought about the themes of pain, power, and the past, I realized this: Leaders who are in touch with pain…can see and serve people with compassion. Leaders who are in touch with power…can be incredible advocates for the most vulnerable in society. Leaders who are in touch with the past…can teach and guide others with great humility and wisdom. In another way of putting it: Pain builds compassion. Power builds advocacy. The past builds wisdom.” (Kindle Location 1077)

As I touched on with my thoughts on Flannery O’Connor, but worked out in more detail in a discussion on Facebook, how we look at heroes and history matters to how we think about Christian development today. It wasn’t until I started looking at my notes that on The Minority experience that I realized I had internalized this piece of advice without attributing it. Pei quotes Soong-Rah Chan as saying, “American culture tends to hide the stories of guilt and shame and seeks to elevate stories of success. American culture gravitates toward narratives of exceptionalism and triumphalism, which results in amnesia about a tainted history.” (Kindle location 1091)

Part of what is important in The Minority Experience is a focus on rightly grappling with history and experience so that we can rightly understand what it means to be a Christian. If we think of Christianity through the lens of hagiography of the saints, we will have a distorted understanding of what faithfulness looks like as a Christian. This is true for both Christians as individuals and systems that Christians work and worship in. It may be particularly important today, as we are facing organizational crises brought on by abusive power and sexual abuse and cover-up, that we rightly tell ourselves truthful stories of our past.

If our organizational stories and mythology is only about greatness, and not about mistakes, then we will not learn about the history of overcoming that is part of the natural reality of an organic system. People and systems are both corrupted by sin, and inherently limited by their creation. We as individuals were not created with unlimited potential, we were created with limited potential (although in God’s image so with inherent value and dignity.) Organizations are similarly limited because they are made up of humans. The best intentioned organizations will make mistakes and will harm people, even if only unintentionally. Without learning to see that pain and accurate history organizationally, the system cannot adequately deal with it and heal.

Richard Beck on his blog posted about the helpfulness of thinking about sin, not just as ‘missing the mark’ but also through the metaphor of sickness or disease. Sin impacts relationships. The pithy wisdom, ‘hurt people, hurt people’, means that we cannot just cut people off organizationally to become more healthy. We also have to work at healing ruptured relationships to produce stronger bonds.

I have already ordered three copies of this to give to friends. There are no silver bullets in the world, but books like The Minority Experience can be helpful to give a lens to areas of growth.

(A digital copy of the book was provided free by the publisher for review.)

The Minority Experience: Navigating Emotional and Organizational Realities is a new entry into the own voices discussions of race, particularly as they relate to organizations’ employees.

The first section of the book discusses Pei’s experiences as Asian American and also offers examples of those of other persons of color.

The second section offers ideas for how to approach topics of race and pain within an organization. Pei’s background is in ministry and the corporate world, but the concepts are applicable to many industries, organizations, and groups.

Unless this is a completely new topic for readers, there isn’t anything particularly revelatory in this book. However, it is a good addition to the own voices books about social justice, and it is somewhat new due to the Asian American perspective. We need perspectives from all different people of color to round out our knowledge and our libraries.

I received an advance-read copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Pei, Adrian. The Minority Experience: Navigating Emotional and Organizational Realities. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018.

Listening. It’s something none of us are really good at. All of us need to grow in this area. We must become better listeners. As part of of the majority culture, I am constantly trying, as a pastor in a minority context, to listen. This is what Andrew Pei’s The Minority Experience asks of us, in the majority white culture: listen. Please hear what we have to say. Please listen to our experiences. We are not invisible.

Pei, as an Asian-American who has worked in majority culture institutions and ministries (para-church Cru and their Asian counterpart Epic) asks us to listen in on the minority experience so we may better understand the struggles, challenges, and often heartache that our minority brothers and sisters experience everyday.

He defines minority, not so much as ethnicity or race, but in relation to the ones who hold the majority of societal and cultural power (Loc. 97, 154). He clarifies the distinction between ethnicity and race. “Ethnicity refers to the various ancestral attributes that distinguish a people group…” while race “is a category with a history and purpose of social power” (Loc. 111). The idea or category of “race” was created for oppression. (Loc. 118).

Asians, Latinos, and African Americans are growing into the majority, soon to eclipse whites, but they remain at the boundaries of societal and cultural power. Therefore, they remain in the cultural minority.

The Minority Experience is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on understanding the minority experience by delving into Pei’s three foci of pain, power, and past. Chapter 1 deals with understanding the pain and the self doubt that flows out of that pain. Chapter 2 looks at all three (pain, power, and past) as distinctive of the minority experience. Then chapters 3 and 4 focus in more specifically on push toward domestication because of majority power and the weariness of the past. I am scratching my head a bit why chapter 2 wasn’t an introductory chapter. Why start with pain, then pause to cover all three again, and then hit play to finish with power and past?

The second part focuses on redeeming the minority experience specifically within the context of organizations. Chapter 5 focuses on how organizations may diversify. Chapters 6 through 8 seek to address pain, power and past redemptively. We must see pain with the eyes of compassion. We must steward power with the hands of advocacy. And we must reframe the past with a heart of wisdom. Pei ends the book with a challenge and opportunity. He ends by writing:

"The biggest challenge of race, politics, and any polarizing issue in society today is not who is right or wrong. Those debates will likely never end, nor be resolved. More importantly, how do we engage people who are different from us? That is the great challenge and opportunity of leadership today" (Loc. 1752).

His book calls us to consider three elements of the minority experience: pain, power, and past. I believe these categories are helpful ways to think through the minority experience. For example, the “Black Lives Matter” movement incorporates elements of all three: pain, power, and past.

Pei stands against the tendency of the majority culture to try to flatten out the pain and experiences of minorities with the expression: “All lives matter.” While this is true, it misses the point. “Black Lives Matter” is a call to see blacks as human beings. It’s a call to affirm the dignity of African Americans. When “All Lives Matter” is thrown out, conversation ceases and the pain of being a minority is silenced. We must not silence one another. We must become better listeners. We must be willing to hear the stories of pain experienced by others. This pain exists because of the power held over minorities by white culture and there is a long history of this oppression which continues on today.

When “Black Lives Matter” is confronted with “All Lives Matter” it says that your pain doesn’t matter and makes the past irrelevant. But to listen is in itself an act of dignity and value. Listening to one another expresses love, and showers dignity upon them. As Christians, it is giving rightful due to the imago dei within all.

The second half of The Minority Experience focuses in on the organizational dimension. Pei asks, “Are we willing to listen and absorb stories of pain from minorities in our organizations? Are we willing to confront imbalances and abuses of power in our organization? Are we willing to explore the impact of the past in the United States and in our organization?” Questions like these are valuable mirrors we need to peer into in order to become better listeners to the minorities in our organizations. Pei’s focus plays out in the para-church Cru, but asking such questions would be just as valuable for churches and their leaders.

An element of The Minority Experience I deeply appreciated was Pei’s voice adding to what has been predominantly a very black and white issue. He recognizes that Blacks have in many ways led the way forward for other minorities. It’s good to hear voices from Asians, Latinos, and others. Pei’s voice and the other diversity of voices he brings along with him are much needed elements to the discussion. Pei writes, “When people of color bring their voices together, it helps grow the sense of common good and flourishing for all that God intended.” (Loc. 1554).

The church is the ultimate minority group. This is the broader portrait that we as followers of Christ find ourselves in. We are outsiders in this world. We are other. We do not belong. We are oppressed, despised, and often relegated to meaninglessness. The church has a shared pain, a lack of power, and a past history of suffering.

Obviously, some may object that Christianity is anything but a minority. The reality is, Christianity has always been and always will be on the fringes of culture and society. Any semblance of Christianity that appears to be part of the majority culture is only a christianity that has capitulated itself to the world.

The true church, the remnant people of God, has always been culturally weak throughout history. And even if there were perceived times of power where Christianity seemed to rule the majority and hold all the power those times are gone. Christianity, with each passing day, is more and more relegated to the boundaries of society at best and shoved into dark corners with the hope of it never coming out again. True followers of Christ are the spiritual minority.

Therefore, I would have loved to have seen Pei trace these themes of remnant, church in the diaspora, etc. throughout Scripture and apply them to the current ethnic minority situation. I believe there is room for a lot of fruit if we would place the ethnic minority experience into the framework of the broader spiritual/Christian minority experience.

It would have been helpful for Pei to have written a foundational chapter which focused on the biblical-theological themes of pain, power, and past. This would have helped situate the ethnic minority experience into the broader framework of Scripture’s storyline.

The “bible parts” at the end of each chapter felt a bit tacked on. This book would have been better served to have a separate foundational section which dealt with the biblical material from a redemptive-historical outlook. Instead of brief snippets of biblical examples from minority backgrounds it would have been more instructive to trace the larger themes of pain, power, and past through the scriptural flow of history in both testaments. Without this, the book feels a bit weak and lacks a bit of the punch of Scripture necessary to cut through the majority culture’s inability to listen.

And with those biblical themes being trace he could have ended on a chapter of hope: how the Gospel of Jesus Christ offers hope to the ethnic minorities who are in Christ. Ultimately, how does the good news of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection address the pain, the power, and the past of the minority experience? This was briefly hit on, but in reality this and only this is the answer which offers any hope. The Gospel deserves a broader reckoning in the story of the minority’s experience.